This is a guest post from Noah Geisel.

“Quote cards were fun way to be more creative with it and manipulate it instead of just writing it down.” — Cruz, 20.

My Digital Media & Learning class is driven by critical thinking and analysis. There’s a lot of reading and reading reflection, and I wanted students to go deeper than the mindless compliance of writing a few words on an LMS discussion board because they were required to.

Turns out, so did they.

The Quote Card Assignment
It was simple: Do the reading and pull three quotes to make into graphics and add to a collaborative Google Slides deck. During class, I showed exemplars from inspirational Twitter posts and modeled how to use Slides, Adobe Spark, and Canva to make their graphics. I posted additional resources in the LMS.

Lastly, I encouraged them to use Commenting and the Presenter Notes on the slides as they saw fit. If they pulled a quote because it seemed deep and important, perhaps share why in the notes. If they used a line because they had no idea what it’s saying and were hoping someone else would shed a light because it seemed important, consider noting that for peers!

Not every student went above and beyond. Some did. What every student did was produce reflections that went beyond what I am used to seeing in traditional discussion threads.

• Students mostly chose background images that related to their understanding of the quote, hinting that they probably read at least their own quote.
• No students repeated the same quotes. So they probably read each others’ slides. One student, Joshua, commented, “Looking at someone else’s highlights helped me know whether I was understanding the same stuff as them from the readings or if I was out in left field.”
• One student, unprompted, went in before class and organized the slides by page number rather than the chronological order of when students added them. A second student, seeing this, suggested in the next class that we instead organize the quotes thematically around the deeper ideas that emerged from discussion (because class discussion was sparked entirely by the students’ quotes).
• When asked why we did the reading reflections this way, students pointed out that they had collaboratively pulled quotes and page numbers that were now easily accessible for everyone to use in citing sources on an assigned essay. This produced an ah-ha moment as they realized that, as a group, they had just saved themselves future time and effort.

Beyond these observations, I know the quote graphic activity worked because of this message that one student, Brian, sent me: “I like the quote cards activity a lot. So far, I loved the class. It’s more dynamic than any other class I’ve taken…involving different tools. You are immersing us in things we’ve never done before.” 

Noah Geisel is a World Languages, EdTech and Digital Badges consultant, teacher and speaker who is passionate about helping educators and students make awesome happen. He is a learner, sharer, traveler and giver of high fives. Noah was recognized as the 2013 ACTFL National Language Teacher of the Year. He is also Education Director at Stackup.net. He blogs at medium.com/@senorg and is on twitter at @SenorG